Calvin Littlejohn - Sanders

Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White.  By Bob Ray Sanders and foreword by Don Carleton. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press and the UT Briscoe Center for American History, 2009. Long, cloth covered hardback with excellent portrait of Littlejohn on the cover, many toned b&w photos, and at the end a list of the photos with lightly expanded annotations of the photos.  ISBN 978-0-87565-381 $29.95 http://www.prs.tcu.edu   Bob Sanders is long-time fixture at the on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper.  He provides the extensive narrative detailing Littlejohn's life and the photos, now housed at the Briscoe Center in Austin. During World War II and broadcasts of Amos and Andy, Calvin Littlejohn came from Arkansas to Fort Worth as a young man to serve as a domestic.  Quickly rising, he went on to become the premier photographer of the African Fort Worth community and occasionally beyond. Schools and students, businesses, community & social events, church buildings and folks, sports & entertainment, and world leaders fill the several chapters. The adjectives that come to mind are: lively, dignified, industrious, poignant, sorrowful, insightful, and just plain heart-warming.  The man had an eye - and a camera.  Delightful. Several photos are particularly striking:the "Introductory" page's image of Littlejohn in his own early lab; the 1991 self-portrait (page 13), two fellows resting on wooden crates (no doubt talking about the flooded homes in the background (page 82); third, the wonderful group of kids with their hula-hoops (page 87), and the bride in her gown on page 112.